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I’ve been a busy bee, so it’s taken a while to get this latest free pattern up for you! Seems fitting that it is a page about a very busy bee!

This page came about because I wanted to do a page about spring flowers and bees, but I also wanted to do something to help Jax with his manual dexterity. A lacing activity was the perfect combination! Since Jax is in to dot-to-dots and mazes, I numbered the flowers so the bee needs to follow the correct path to collect pollen and bring it back to the hive.

This two-page spread is a scrap-buster. All the flowers are made from my scrap felt from American Felt and Craft. Their felt is way to pretty to throw away even the smallest scraps. But my scrap bucket is overflowing! This was a perfect way to use up a bit of it.

What I used:

• The Pattern
• Two 12″ x 9″ felt sheets in jade
• Felt (in gold nugget, cilantro and white)
• Wool-blend felt scraps from American Felt and Craft
• 10 D-rings (3/4″ size)
• Green cord (mine is Wright’s Creative Classics 1/8″)
• Ribbons (Mine were two little dollar bin spools – chevron from this pack and dots from this pack)
• Pony Beads (two black and one yellow)

Starting Leaf: Back stitch a vein on the top leaf piece then sew both layers together. Stitch one end of your cord to the page, then sew the leaf to the page one each end, leaving the center open to hold the extra cord. My cord is sewn to the page under where the leaf is sewn down.

Hive: Stitch the ground piece to the page on the ends. The rest will get sewn down under the hive. Sew the leaves down one at a time by back stitching a center vein.

Cut the center slit in both hive pieces, then sew a running stitches (dashed lines)  to show the layers of the hive. Pin the two layers of the hive together and sew both sides of the slit using a blanket stitch. Pin the hive onto the page and sew it down around the outside edge.

Leaves and D-rings: For each flower, cut about 3.5″ of ribbon and fold it in half through a D-ring. Stitch through the ribbon just below the D-ring to hold the ring in place at the end of the folded ribbon. (Zoom in to the above photo to see!) Place each ribbon and D-ring where it will be on the page, and pin a leaf over the end. Stitch the center vein of the leaf, making sure your stitching goes across the end of the ribbon to secure it to the page.

Flowers: You can definitely get creative with your flowers. I’ll tell you what I did for each, but go for it and make this page your own!

For each flower, I used a stem stitch to embroider the number on (using a thread that matches the petals.) I also made French knots in floss that matched the centers – the number of knots corresponding to the flower number.

Flower 1: I layered the petals evenly under the center and stitched the center on. Then I back stitched the center line of each petal.

Flower 2: The petals on this flower were evenly spaced around the center.

Flower 3: I centered the center on the flower petal piece and stitched it down. I made some straight stitches around the center.

Flower 4: I overlapped the petals under the center so they were evenly spaced.

Flower 5: The center is just sewn down over the middle of the petal piece on this flower.

Flower 6: The two petal pieces are layered with the top one rotated. The center was sewn down on top.

Flower 7: I sewed the center down onto the evenly spaced petals. Then I made long stitches in the center of each petal (but not the page) and pulled tight to ruche the petals up.

Flower 8: The petals on this flower are evenly spaced under the center.

Flower 9: The petals are spaced evenly, each one overlapping the petal to the right.

Flower 10: The four petals on the past flower were evenly spaced.

Bee: I melted the loose end of the cord in a candle flame so it couldn’t unravel. I threaded on a black pony bead, yellow pony bead, the wings (with a tiny hole cut in the center of the base) and a black pony bead. Using black thread, I made stitched through the cord and around the black beads to hold them in place. (Look closely at the above picture to see the black thread.)

Here is a quick overview of how I sewed the two pages together.

Jax is thrilled with this page and started playing with it before it was even finished! He begged me every time I finished a flower to let him lace the bee through. I think this page with be a big hit right now.

Stop by my Instagram or the Facebook page to see updates of my current project. It’s a fun one!

This fire station project is a full stand-alone quiet book, just like the dollhouse book, but using full size 9″ x 12″ sheets of felt for each page. The fire fighters are made from the same pattern as the dollhouse dolls, so they will be interchangeable. To see the other sections of the project, go here: Felt Fire Station – Fire Truck & Dalmatian, Felt Fire Station – Garage & Locker Room, Felt Fire Station – Kitchen and Felt Fire Station – Office & Bedroom.

This tutorial is for the cover and assembly. I had to sew my book together as I went in order to have better pictures for the blog. I’ll do my best to explain!

What I Used:

• The Pattern
• Felt from American Felt & Craft (in beet [2 full sheet plus extra], leather, banana cream pie, elephant, big apple, doe, sparrow and gray.)
• Additional Felt Scraps (in cilantro, pink tutu, orange juice, chocolate, and pastry.)
• Clear Vinyl
• Snag-Free Velcro (in white)
• Black Sew-On Velcro (I used 1 loop coin)
• Sew-on Snap
• 5/8″ Yellow Ribbon (Or felt strips. I used gold twill ribbon.)
• 1/8″ Wide Ribbon Scrap (in gray)
• Mini Ric Rac (in olive)

To prep your interior pages, sew each set of facing pages together at the middle seam. I just put right sides together and used a blanket stitch. You will have these sets: garage/locker room and the kitchen/office (with the bedroom already sewn to the top of the office.) You then pin the locker room and kitchen together, wrong sides faceing, and sew around 3 sides (leaving the binding edge open for later.) It will look like an accordion of pages at this point.

I started by sewing everything that goes on the front an back cover to the beet (burgundy) felt sheets and the leather (brown) roof.

Front Exterior: I pinned the garage door in place with strips of ribbon tucked under the sides. I sewed the ribbons down, then sewed around the sides and top of the garage. I sewed the door down beside the garage, leaving space to the right for a piece of snag-free Velcro. I sewed the door emblem onto the upper window, then sewed both windows down. I finished the door by sewing down the handle.

I added 4 pieces of snag-free Velcro to the front, as shown in the above picture. Line it up with 3 matching pieces of Velcro on the top of the bedroom (add those now if you didn’t already.) At this point, you can sew the front exterior to the garage (wrong sides facing). Sewed 3 sides, leaving the spine open for later. (I sewed all 4 sides then had to sew on top of my stitches when sewing the binding closed.)

Back Exterior:

Hydrant: I sewed the fire hydrant down on the far right and sewed a black Velcro dot (loop side so the hook on the hose can attach) to it.

Sunflower: For the sunflower, I made a zigzag stitch that went across the ric rac stem, then added some leaves by stitching a line up the centers. I pinned the flower and flower center in place and sewed around the center, leaving the petals loose.

Dog House: I pinned the two layers of the red dog house together and sewed around the door. I pinned the roof in place and sewed them together along the bottom of the roof. I pinned the doghouse in place on the page, and sewed around the sides and top. This makes a nice pocket for the puppy to go into.

Grill: For the grill, I pinned the grilling surface to the grill body then made long stitches for the grill bars. I made tiny stitches at the end of each long stitch to hold everything tight. I pinned the grill to the page, sewed the top down, and laid the clear vinyl pocket in place. I sewed along the bottom of the pocket, then added a sew-on snap just under it. I sewed around the sides of the grill, making sure to catch the sides of the pocket in my stitches.

For the lid, I sewed a matching snap to one side, then sewed the front and back together with a ribbon handle stretched across and tucked between the layers at each end. I pinned the lid to the page with it already open, and sewed it to the page. Sewing it down while it is open helps it stay open on its own while you are playing.

Hotdogs & Hamburgers: (Veggie dogs and Gardenburgers for us!) Fold each hotdog lengthwise and sew around the edges. Place each one in the center of a bun. Wrap the bun up around the hotdogs and make small stitched through all layers along the length of the hotdog to hold them together. For the hamburgers, stitch tiny sesame seeds to the outside of the top of the bun. Place each patty on the inside of the bottom of each bun, fold over the tops, then make a few tiny stitches to hold them closed.

Side Strap: Sew some snag-free Velcro on to one side that matches the Velcro by the front door, then sew the two sides together.

Roof: Sew the roof emblem to the center bottom of the roof, as shown above.

Pin the back exterior to the office (wrong sides facing) with the side strap caught in the side (Velcro on the interior side). Briefly pin the roof to the bedroom, aligning it to the top (wrong sides facing) to find where it needs to be sewn to the back exterior. Unpin the roof from the bedroom and sew the bottom edge down to the back exterior. Pin the roof back in place and sew the back exterior and roof to the office/bedroom, taking care not to sew the bedroom floor flap when you go past it on each side.

At this point, the book is all sewn together except the side binding is open. With the roof flap open, Sew through all the layers of the book to close the binding. I used a blanket stitch, and used floss that matched the roof to start with, then switched to floss to match the walls.

I didn’t pin mine, as it was so thick. I just went slowly and pinched the layers close and all lined up as I went. Excuse the phone photos here. Jax was napping on my lap and I used his lap as my sewing table. Shh, don’t tell him!

As you can see, the edges came together nicely. This quiet book actually isn’t as thick as I expected it would be all finished.

This is a view of the bottom edge of the book.

Here is a view of the right side. I matched my threads to the exterior (roof and brick colors) when sewing the pages together. But that is just personal preference. I like the clean look on the outside. Since the interior rooms are already busy, the contrasting floss around the edges isn’t really noticeable.

Stay tuned for an fun add-on pattern to be released soon, because firefighters need to have fires to put out! I hope you had fun visiting our little fire station quiet book! Jax will be bringing this along on our week-long vacation in California. We are renting part of a Spanish bungalow so he won’t have any toys but what I bring him.

Are you making the fire station from my pattern? I’d love to see! Email me photos, or stop by the Facebook page to share!

Come back soon!